Godzilla Footage Screened At SXSW Reveals One Of The Reboot’s Big Secrets

With about three months until the movie opens this May, the Godzilla remake is one of the most buzzed-about movies this summer. While we have yet to see much footage of the new King of Monsters in action, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have been doing a great job teasing Godzilla. The original 1954 Godzilla film screened for festival attendees, but they also got a surprise — 10 minutes of footage from the remake were screened for Austin, Texas crowd, finally revealing something the marketing has been hinting at for months now.

The good folks at ShockTillYouDrop provided a description of the footage. There was a lot of online speculation that Godzilla wouldn’t be the only giant monster appearing in the film, and sure enough, the big green guy will have some competition. ShockTillYouDrop says:

It’s a multi-limbed creature with what look like wings on its back (that would explain the mystery shape we saw cutting through the clouds in the official trailer). This beast is wreaking havoc at the airport that sets off a domino-like chain of explosions which take out two airplanes waiting at their gate. From inside the airport, travelers panic, watching the mayhem through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Naturally, Godzilla wasn’t going to be totally upstaged by the other kaiju. While the footage didn’t show the King of Monsters in action, it did give the audience a better look at Godzilla’s new design and mighty roar. From STYD:

A giant foot comes into frame. It looks like a damn tank. But so much bigger than a tank. We’re now back on the tarmac and this second creature looks up at its foe… and in an epic ‘hero shot,’ the camera cuts to Godzilla’s legs and tilts up, offering us the best look at the famous monster yet. You’ve seen him by this point in photos and in fleeting trailer shots, but this footage finally does justice: He looks stocky. He looks like brawler, ready to throw down. And with a mighty Godzilla roar, the footage slams to black.

One of the reasons why Godzilla himself hasn’t been totally revealed in the trailers is because it’s likely effects for the monster aren’t finished yet. There are still three months until the movie hits theaters and it’s likely that the film’s visual effects artists are still rendering and perfecting Godzilla for the movie’s May release date. I really don’t think it’s a J.J. Abrams “mystery box” scenario with Godzilla. The Nerdist provided a more in-depth description of the 10 minutes of SXSW footage:

The scene opens with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and a Japanese child riding in an airport tram. Suddenly, power is lost as Taylor-Johnson reassures the boy the power will be back on momentarily. The scene shifts to a luau on a Hawaii beach where a massive fire burns in the mountains in the distance. As partygoers are distracted a lone girl notices that the ocean has begun to pull away from the beach. When her father comes to collect her, he realizes the warning signs of a tsunami and yells for the crowd to run, scooping up his daughter along the way.

The scene then cuts to Ken Watanabe on a battleship. Massive plates move through the water toward land. Godzilla is coming. The monster dives further under the ship and moves toward the surface, overturning battleships as he breaches.

On the beach, a lone dog is left barking at the coming wave. He finally turns to run, snapping the leash tethering him to a palm tree. The dog quickly catches up to the crowd of humans that left him behind. The father/daughter pair find refuge in a restaurant as the wave crashes through what I believe is Honolulu. Onlookers have taken to the roof and look down as water and debris wash over the city now in chaos. Soldiers on the rooftops fire off flares to reveal the massive trunk of Godzilla’s thigh at about ten stories high. This Godzilla is 350 ft tall.

At the moment, there are no official plot details available for the remake, aside from a brief synopsis from Warner Bros. and Legendary: “An epic rebirth to Toho’s iconic Godzilla, this spectacular adventure pits the world’s most famous monster against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity’s scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.”

Godzilla stars Aaron-Taylor Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe, David Strathairn, and Sally Hawkins, with Akira Takarada from the original film putting in a special cameo appearance. The new movie will stomp into theaters everywhere on May 16, 2014, in 3D and IMAX.